Digital currency operators and Bitcoin exchanges are the most common targets of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks according to a report titled “Q3 2017 Global DDoS Threat Landscape.” Imperva Incapsula said that three out of four Bitcoin sites were victims of DDoS attacks in the third quarter of 2017 alone. A DDoS attack happens when multiple users flood the bandwidth or resource of a targeted system with traffic, thus disallowing legitimate parties to access the site or service.

The said report also cites that the reason behind the attacks is the phenomenal rise of Bitcoin price, which increased by more than twofold during the quarter.

Part of the report reads:

“[We] saw attacks targeting a relatively high number of cryptocurrency exchanges and services. This was likely related to a recent spike in the price of Bitcoin, which more than doubled in the span of the quarter. Overall, more than 73 percent of all Bitcoin sites using our services were attacked this quarter, making it one of the most targeted industries, despite its relatively small size and web presence.”

Other highlights of the report

Based on the report, other sectors like Internet service providers and online gambling and gaming operators were also hit by DDoS attacks. For network layer DDoS attacks, the countries that experienced the highest number of attacks and number of targets include the US, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

For application layer DDoS attacks, the most targeted countries included the US, the Netherlands and other developed countries with mature digital marketplaces like Singapore, Japan and Australia.

The report also claimed that the countries where the majority of botnet traffic originated included China, Turkey and India. China has maintained its position as the main location of attack devices with more than 40 percent of the total.